Gadi Eisenkot pledges to end Hamas Gaza rule in 18 months

Israeli opposition politician Gadi Eisenkot pledged Thursday to end Hamas rule in Gaza within 18 months if he becomes prime minister after Israel's October 27 election.

Eisenkot, leader of the centre-right Yashar party and described as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main rival in the vote, said Hamas would no longer rule the Gaza Strip from the moment he entered the prime minister's office.

He said he would seek that either by implementing US President Donald Trump's Gaza ceasefire plan, which provides for the gradual disarmament of Hamas and a transfer of power, or through Israeli military operations aimed at destroying Hamas's military wing.

Eisenkot, a 66-year-old former military chief, accused Netanyahu of a “strategic failure” in Gaza. He said Hamas remained armed and militarily active after three years of war.

He also repeated a pledge to establish a state commission of inquiry into any security lapses before Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The Israeli government has resisted such an inquiry.

The October 7 attack killed more than 1,200 people. Israel's offensive in Gaza has since killed more than 74,300 people, according to the territory's health ministry, which operates under Hamas and whose figures are generally considered reliable by the United Nations.

Netanyahu has rejected accusations that he bears personal responsibility for the October 7 attack and says security officials did not wake him on the morning it happened. Current polls cited by AFP show neither Netanyahu's bloc nor Eisenkot's bloc with the 61 seats needed to control Israel's 120-seat parliament and form a coalition government.